Declare emergency on unemployment, ECWA president urges FG

With unemployment rate in Nigeria increasing to 23.10 per cent in the third quarter of 2018 from 22.70 per cent in the second quarter, President, Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), Rev. Stephen Baba, has tasked managers of the Nigerian economy to treat high rate of unemployment in the country as a matter of emergency.

Baba, who stated this at the dedication of the worship auditorium of ECWA, Ikorodu, said the high rate of unemployment and poverty often breed discontent and insecurity.

He, therefore, urged the leaders and those in authorities to positively engage the strength of the energetic youths, noting that the country stands to reap the gains of productivity and profits by doing so or suffers in an unimaginable way if it fails to address the high level of unemployment.

“It is the constitutional responsibility of government to put in place the enabling environment to create jobs and allow for innovative ideas to thrive. We appeal to the government at all levels to consider job creation as a matter of national emergency to save the country from the mass exodus of Nigerian citizens to other countries in search of means of survival who end up perishing in the oceans and desert, while those who remain take to various heinous crimes as means of livelihood.”

Besides, he said that equally disturbing is the country being polarised along regional, ethnic and religious lines.

He, however, advised the political leadership to strictly adhere to the federal character principle in the distribution of national wealth, projects and to implement policies of national unity rather than adopting divisive policies and bias leadership.

He advised President Muhammadu Buhari to put square pegs in square holes in the allocation portfolios to the ministers and address the myriad of national problems bedeviling the nation.